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Some of the key challenges Arsenal face ahead of the new season

Some of the key challenges for next season. by Konstantin Mitov

Hello again fellow Arsenal fans! The world cup is ongoing and we finally saw some Arsenal wins at the world cup where Lichtsteiner and Xhaka impressed again, although Granit didn’t miss the opportunity to mark his good performance with political gestures that might get him in trouble.

In other world cup news, England cruised to the last 16 and say it quietly, but looking at the other teams, this could be a good year for the three lions. Welbeck didn’t feature again, but key players of the other top 4 contenders might return late which is good for us.

Back to Arsenal players as unused subs, Ozil was made the scapegoat of Germany although you can’t say the performance was any better without him, the important thing was the drop. Will Emery have the balls to bench him? Ozil is a luxury player, who made the best out of the poor situation at Arsenal to get a bumper new deal knowing we can’t afford to let both him and Sanchez leave. We failed to manage Ozil properly and this will be one of Emerys biggest tasks.

The other obvious is the back 5. We signed Leno and it’s difficult to imagine him not overtaking Cech. Ospina did make some nice saves in Colombia’s demolition of Poland, but he’s very likely to be sold as Cech has little resale value, but could be kept for his experience.

Now for the defenders. We know Sokratis will be one, but the other? Surely not Mustafi? Do we sign someone or promote Chambers or Mavropanos? Then Bellerin and Monreal are no brainers in the squad because of the language barrier.

And if you think that isn’t important, here is a quote from an interview with Emery “Luckily, the French I learned when I was younger helped me out a bit! Of course, I don’t fully master it. One day, I heard Rafael Benitez say that he wasn’t able to transmit everything he wanted to say in English, and that surprised me because he was fluent in English and that he had been living there for 15 years. But he was missing that small percentage which would have allowed him to connect perfectly with his players”.

Now multiply this by the number of people Emery brings with him in his backroom staff and it could be a problem. I’m not saying it will be, but it might. Also the decision to let Emery bring in so many assistant coaches is somewhat strange.

We hire him to work in a structure, but we allow him to bring all his men, then we keep Steve Bould as a bridge to the past? I guess the board thought it’d be nice to have one familiar face to say hi to when the players return. But then again will Emery work with Bould when he has his trusty friend Juan Carlos Carcedo?

Another funny one is the new strength and conditioning coach – Julen Masach, who makes the role of Darren Burgess questionable. Same goes for the other survivor – goalkeeper coach Sal Bibbo, and the new one – Javi Garcia.

Emery has to win over the players. His CV’s biggest achievement are the three Europa Leagues, which might not be enough to command respect from the likes of Ozil and Aubameyang. And trying to work well with the familiar faces at Arsenal rather than just sticking to his pals can be a good start.

It was very interesting how Lehmann complained that he was axed, with a comment that the class of 2004 is no longer needed. Now I love Jens, but truth is the year is 2018 and football has changed dramatically, both on and off the pitch. And I failed to see any impact from Jens on the squad, especially in the goalkeeper department, which was one of the worst in the team.

For all his character and qualities he had on the pitch, he was just another Wenger yes man and those days are dead in the new Arsenal, but I still don’t get how Bouldy is any different, but we’ll see very soon if our defensive performances will change and if not he’ll be gone with the rest of the coaching staff, just like in any other top club (I can’t enjoy enough the fact that people would be held accountable for once)!

So all and all a lot of work has to be done and while all eyes are in Russia, it’s the players that are not there that matter for us. They have to soak up the ideas of the new coach and help the others when they return.

That’s me done for now, hopefully we’ll be back with more to talk about soon as I expect a few more signings to be announced in the near future!

So Gareth Bale is NOT at the World Cup.Wales did not qualify.Danny Welbeck IS at the World Cup.
By YOUR reckoning this makes Danny Welbeck a higher commodity of a Footballer than Gareth Bale.
I think you have been spending far too much time with your pet goat.How are things between you both by the way
?

Danny Welbeck is AT THE WORLD CUP and Gareth Bale IS NOT AT THE WORLD CUP.
You continue to confuse yourself at your own inability to say anything that either makes sense or is not contradicted.Tead what you have written before posting and you would not continue to make yourself look so foolish.

OT;why are people happy to see messi this low?It’s a strange world we inhabit when the struggles of mesi,a player who has brought so much joy to so many people, are greeted with glee by some and triumphalism by others.Why would seeing messi brought low make you happy? why would seeing a bird trapped in a cage make you rejoice.The Argentina side misshapen and disorganized, cought between one defensive formation and another, it’s football’s equivalent of an army unit gone rogue.I am happy to hear the Argentina Senior players messi and mascherano will be consulted about the team that will play Nigeria their manager is a clown letting a star started team down.I predict Argentina will progress further than Portugal’s cr7 in this tournament

Sorry mate, Argentina is as good as gone. I love Messi & his style of play, I really do but having said that, I don’t see them beating Nigeria which they have to if they must progress in the tournament.

How many defenders will prefer to play against Messi than any other player?I don’t think there’s a better player with the ball at feet.People will use stats to debate but on that basis Ozil is better than Iniesta.Messi has nothing to prove and as Arsenal fan he’s the best player I’ve ever watched.

messi already decides who gets called up to NT, lol. Argentina don’t deserve anything because they have been terrible, and messi has been terrible along with them. dont feel bad for him in the slightest.

I read some of the previous articles and I saw another Kev telling you guys that Kovacic loan is a done deal and Gelson Martins is likely to follow suit if only we are willing to sort out the legal matters of his contract.
Please this is not me and should the deals materialize or not I Pont want to be given the credit or be bashed for something didn’t say.I will however post news when I see something concrete.

There are 2 kevs now? Holy world…
Anyways… What is your take on the news reported by this illegal kev?
What do you think about Kovacic and gelson deals as he/she reported?
I know i have never supported you with your exuberant transfer claims and i dont support you even now.

But as i previously stated , during this off season your news does entertain us.

PS: Are you the legal kev or his clone? If you are the latter then sorry for calling you “illegal kev” :p

Lol. There seems to be a kev imposter. Now can’t remember which kev said what, and which kev didn’t. Not sure what motivates the copycat trolling the real kev, some people can just be a nuisance. Well kev with the small k how do we know you are the real “kev” or “Kev”?

If Unai Emery supports Darren Burgess in conditioning the Arsenal squad in pre season, he will start the season with very fit players. As Darren was brought in at the same time as Sven and Raul, it is difficult to see Unai dispensing with his services, as he has an excellent CV in conditioning and fitness training.
Also the advantage for Arsenal for 2018/19 is that most of our players will have a full pre season to build fitness and teamwork.

I think it’s good we have kept those staff to give us continuity after emery is gone, bould now has to show us if he was truly held back by wenger. Having one staff from emery and from arsenal in almost all the positions is good. The assistant head coach role, goal keeping coach role, performance/strength and conditioning have one staff each from emery and arsenal, the only extras are first team coach and data/video analyst. The coaching structure seems good for the future as any new manager coming in can just replace his own staff with emery’s while the other arsenal staff would continue to work while learning from differnt manager ideas and input.

A bonus, moreover, that we have not had since 2007. Like you Phil, I long to see a team who know how to defend and care about conceding goals; not a flustered conflab, after conceding (or worse still a non concerned shoulder shrug) between virtual strangers who you might well think have never even practised together. And this happened almost every darned week too!